Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 10, 1 ʻOkakopa 1990 — Naturally Hawaiian [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Naturally Hawaiian

By Patrick Ching artist/environmentalist

A head start for our native seals

This article comes to you from the north-western-most point in the Hawaiian ehain. Over 1,200 miles from Honolulu, the tiny atoll of Kure rises barely 25 feet above the ocean's surface. Kure atoll, nameel after a Russian

navigator, is all that remains of what onee was a large volcanic island. What's on Kure atol! you might ask? Not mueh if you're looking for restaurants and shopping malls, but an awful lot if native wildlife interests you. Kure, along with the rest of the atolls and islets that lay to the west of Ni'ihau, are collectively known as the northwest Hawaiian is!ands. They are home to a wealth of native animals that live both in and above the sea. The waters around these islands are teeming with fish and other manne animals while the land areas are used by nesting seabirds, green sea turtles, and of course endangered Hawaiian monk seals. The reason I'm here is to help with a "Head Start" project for young monk seals. No, I'm not teaching the seals how to read or write. This "Head Start" project, run by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Manne Mammals program, is designed to give young monk seals a better ehanee of survival by keeping them alive through their first summer. "If the seals ean survive their first summer, their chances of reaching reproductive maturity is greatly increased" says John Henderson of the NMFS Marine Mammals project. "Head Start" focuses on female seal pups because there are significantly fewer female seals than male seals in the Hawaiian monk seal population. No one ean say for sure exactly how the sex ratio became so uneven. The prob!em is eompounded by the fact that more female seals are being killed by groups of male seals whieh attack individual females during breeding. Sharks are also responsible for the deaths of many monk seals especially the vu!nerable young seals. The program on Kure was started in 1981 when five newly-weaned pups, known as weaners, were kept in an enclosed area of the lagoon safe from sharks and aggressive adult seals. The enclosure was stocked with live fish whieh the seals learned to catch and eat. In 1981 thefirstofthe"HeadStart"fema!esgave birth and since then five more are known to have pupped. Of the seals that went through the "Head Start" program at Kure, 18 have been resighted so far this year. "That's a very significant percentage" says Henderson. "This increase shows the pro-

gram is definitely worthwhile." Meanwhile, back on the main islands, monk seals are coming to the popu!ated islands with increasing regularity. If you see a monk seal hauled out on the beach

don't disturb it. Though it may appear sick or even dead it is probably just getting its mueh needed rest and should be viewed from a distance of at least 100 feet.

Hawaiian monk seal